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Designers and woodworking business owners Eileen O’Dea and Ryan Silverman have spent 14 years renovating their 75-year-old, two-bedroom cottage in Los Angeles’ Mar Vista neighborhood. An Apartment Therapy home tour describes the couple’s custom work, including a redesigned kitchen, handcrafted cabinetry, wood floors and ceilings, and specialty wall finishes.
Eileen O’Dea and Ryan Silverman, a creative couple who run woodworking and home-design businesses, have spent 14 years customizing a 75-year-old cottage in Los Angeles’ Mar Vista neighborhood. An Apartment Therapy home tour details how they changed the two-bedroom house with handmade furniture, wood floors and ceilings, custom cabinetry, and renovations shaped around their life with three dogs.
The couple’s work began after Silverman, who had rented the home for years, and O’Dea had the opportunity to buy it. O’Dea told Apartment Therapy the house had been dark and short on personality before their renovations. The changes included adding windows, making a large closet from part of a bedroom, and raising the kitchen ceiling.
O’Dea and Silverman are founders of The Wooden Palate, a home-accessories and cutting-board company, and STUDIO E&R, a woodworking business that makes custom furniture and wood features for homes. O’Dea also works with decorative finishes, including limewash, Moroccan clay, and Roman clay. Their home tour presents the cottage as a residence shaped by those interests, rather than simply a display of their professional work.
One early project was O’Dea’s closet, built by Silverman before she moved in. It uses a fumed-oak herringbone ceiling, walnut built-in dressers and shelves, and parquet flooring. They later replaced the bedroom floors with quarter-sawn oak parquet and added a custom bed with integrated nightstands, which Silverman built.
Craftsmanship Shapes a Family Home
The tour offers a specific example of homeowners applying professional design and woodworking skills to a long-term renovation. Its focus is not a single makeover or a newly completed property: the couple says the work has unfolded over 14 years, as time and budget allowed. That distinction matters for readers interested in renovation, because the account describes a series of substantial projects rather than a quick, all-at-once transformation.
It also shows how custom details can connect a home’s appearance to how its owners use the space. The couple lives there with dogs Lucy, Hank, and Tilda, and O’Dea told Apartment Therapy they designed the house around their family and interests. The report documents their choices, but it does not establish that the approach is inexpensive or suitable for every homeowner: O’Dea says they want high-quality finishes in their own home, even when those projects take time to afford.
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Fourteen Years of Renovations
The cottage is a postwar, two-bedroom home, according to Apartment Therapy’s report. Silverman rented it before he and O’Dea bought the property. The renovation account traces projects across several rooms, beginning with the closet and bedroom and later reaching the kitchen, dining room, and laundry area.
The couple removed walls between the kitchen and adjoining spaces to create a more open area. They raised the kitchen ceiling to the roofline, installed a bleached-walnut chevron pattern, and made the cabinets themselves. The report also describes Roman-clay walls, antique French oak floors, green stone counters, and a La Cornue stove that the couple said they found at an estate sale for a favorable price. The article does not provide a purchase price for the stove or a total renovation budget.
“The house was quite dark and didn’t have much personality until we started playing … adding windows, creating a large closet from half a bedroom, raising the ceiling in the kitchen.”
— Eileen O’Dea, speaking to Apartment Therapy
Costs and Future Projects Remain Open
The Apartment Therapy tour does not state the cottage’s square footage, its purchase price, the total cost of renovations, or whether the couple has a set completion date for the remaining work. O’Dea said some projects take a long time because the couple must find both the time and the money to undertake them. The report does not identify which projects, if any, are still unfinished.
The article is a reported home tour, not an independent inspection or a cost analysis. Details about materials, labor, and the estate-sale stove are based on the couple’s account as presented by Apartment Therapy; the report does not supply receipts, contractor records, or a separate valuation.
No Completion Date Reported
The source does not announce a new renovation, a sale, or a scheduled next milestone. O’Dea told Apartment Therapy that projects can wait until the couple has the time and budget to take them on, so the account describes an ongoing process rather than a finished renovation plan. No further update or project timeline is included in the report.
Key Questions
Who owns the Los Angeles cottage?
Eileen O’Dea and Ryan Silverman own the home. Silverman rented it for years before the couple had the opportunity to buy it, according to Apartment Therapy.
Where is the cottage, and how large is it?
The home is in Mar Vista, Los Angeles. The report describes it as a 75-year-old, two-bedroom cottage but does not give its square footage.
What renovation work did the couple do?
The tour describes projects including adding windows, creating a closet from part of a bedroom, raising the kitchen ceiling, opening up adjoining rooms, building cabinets, and installing custom wood floors and ceiling details.
How long did the kitchen renovation take?
O’Dea told Apartment Therapy that the kitchen took about nine months to complete. She said the couple still considered it their favorite room seven years later.
Was the renovation done on a small budget?
The report does not give a total budget. O’Dea said the work was not necessarily budget-focused because she and Silverman want high-quality materials and craftsmanship, while also noting that they do not have unlimited funds for their own home.
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